Closed Circle

by Robert Goddard

  ‘Brosch started by telling me a state secret. The Joint Council of Ministers had met that afternoon and agreed the wording of an ultimatum to be delivered to Serbia on Thursday, requiring an answer within forty-eight hours. The terms of the ultimatum were intended to be unacceptable. He had no doubt Serbia would reject them. And that would mean war within a week. I could hardly believe it. He was handing me the scoop to end all scoops. And why? Because there was more to it. Much more.

  ‘“Why are you confiding in me, Colonel?” I asked.

  ‘“Because you are the only English journalist in Vienna I trust,” he replied in his piping voice. “I need your help. And you need mine. You heard of Major Köszegi’s suicide?” I said I had. “A good man. We cannot afford such losses. He came to me the day after the funeral to confess his small part in the conspiracy. And to repent of it.”

  ‘“What conspiracy?” I asked.

  ‘“The Archduke’s murder,” he replied.

  ‘“Köszegi was working for the Serbians?”

  ‘“No,” said Brosch. “The Serbs did not kill him, Duggan.”’

  ‘“Who did, then?”

  ‘“A secret international organization. It calls itself the Concentric Alliance. It is run by an Englishman. That is why I have come to you. I need to find out as much about him as I can, before it is too late. His name is—”’

  Duggan broke off and stopped, then turned slowly to look at me. Recollection seemed to have restored a glint to his eyes, a hint of vigour to his bearing. I knew who he was about to name. In my pocket was a piece of paper with two concentric circles drawn on it. In my mind were Charnwood’s words as he spun a five-shilling piece on his desk. ‘A circle and a straight line may be the same thing, depending on your point of view.’ The circle of his power. The straight line of a bullet’s flight. Here, on an empty beach in Northumberland. And there, on a crowded street in Sarajevo. ‘I don’t believe it,’ I said.

  ‘That’s what I said to Brosch,’ Duggan replied. ‘“I don’t believe it.” And that’s what he’d said to Köszegi. But he changed his mind. And so did I. Now it’s your turn.’

  ‘It can’t be true.’

  ‘But it is. True as I’m standing here, Mr Horton, and you’re standing there. True as Brosch said it. “His name is Fabian Charnwood.”’

  A man throwing sticks for his dog was approaching from the village end of the beach. Catching sight of him, Duggan turned round and began walking hard in the opposite direction. I followed, struggling as much to keep pace with him as to order the questions I wanted to ask in my mind. Charnwood responsible for the assassination in Sarajevo and hence for the Great War; for the three miserable years Max and I had spent in Macedonia; for the shattered reason of my brother Felix; and for the lost lives of all the men listed on all the memorials in all the lands the war had touched: it was not possible, not credible, not—

  ‘Brosch told Köszegi to pull himself together and stop talking nonsense. Where was the proof? What was the motive? Köszegi tried to answer. He’d been enlisted in the conspiracy by Brosch’s successor as head of Franz Ferdinand’s military chancellery, Colonel Karl von Bardolff.’

  ‘Karl von Bardolff?’ I interjected, recalling the old man in the white képi on Vasaritch’s yacht.

  ‘Yes. What about it?’

  ‘It’s just … Is he still alive?’

  ‘Probably. Why?’

  Still alive. Consorting, if he was the same man, with a Frenchman, an Englishman and a Yugoslav. Or was Vasaritch actually a Serb? ‘He calls himself a Yugoslav,’ Faraday had said. ‘But what does that mean?’ ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘Bardolff exploited Köszegi’s doubts about Franz Ferdinand’s plans for the Empire after his uncle’s death. An end to Hungarian autonomy. A rooting out of Jews, Freemasons and liberals. Appeasement of the Slavic population. Since Franz Josef was well into his eighties, all this might be just around the corner. And Köszegi liked the sound of none of it, especially the assault on Hungarian rights. He put loyalty to his homeland, Hungary, above loyalty to any prince. He agreed to play his part for patriotic reasons. Bardolff was chairman of the committee responsible for security during the Sarajevo visit and explained it would be deliberately lax. Assassins would be on hand to kill the Archduke during his drive through the town. All Köszegi had to do, as a member of his body-guard, was notice nothing and prevent nothing. The assassination would be blamed on Serbia and the Empire would be spared an unthinkable future. Köszegi joined the conspiracy.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why should Charnwood be involved in a plot to protect Hungarian rights?’

  ‘Because they were irrelevant to the plot’s true purpose. As Köszegi found out – too late. The night after the assassination, one of the other members of the body-guard got drunk and goaded Köszegi with the truth. Franz Ferdinand hadn’t been killed to save Hungary. He’d been killed to spark off a world war. The conspirators had acted on behalf of an organization called the Concentric Alliance. Their motive was money. And Fabian Charnwood was going to give them money – lots of it – out of the profits he’d make from the war they’d set in motion.’

  ‘I still don’t understand. What profits? How were they to be realized?’

  ‘Köszegi didn’t know. And he didn’t want to know. He was an accessory to murder. And the ideals he thought justified the crime were a sham. For him, that was enough. The day after confessing to Brosch, he shot himself. It was only then Brosch began to take his allegations seriously. He’d always had doubts about Bardolff’s integrity. And the failure of security in Sarajevo was undeniable. Could something more sinister than incompetence have been at work? He began to ask questions, to prod and probe wherever he could. He went to Sarajevo and enquired into the circumstances of the assassination. And the more he discovered, the more he came to believe what Köszegi had told him. There were seventy thousand troops camped outside the city on the twenty-eighth of June. It was their manoeuvres Franz Ferdinand had gone to Bosnia to see. The Bosnian Governor, General Potiorek, could have lined the streets with them during the Archduke’s visit. That’s what his predecessor had done for the Emperor’s visit in 1910. He could have called in the secret police and had all dissidents and foreigners expelled from the city – as also done in 1910. But he chose to do neither. When the Archduke and his wife drove into Sarajevo with him that Sunday morning, a bomb was thrown at them, but it missed, injuring an aide-de-camp. The party went on to the Town Hall and had lunch there. The Archduke asked Potiorek if he thought any more bombs would be thrown. Potiorek said no. But what was his answer worth? He should have urged the Archduke to remain at the Town Hall until troops could be called in to protect him. But he didn’t. Instead, he stuck rigidly to the programme. Or would have, but for the Archduke’s wife insisting they visit the injured aide-de-camp in hospital straight after lunch. That meant a change of route. Strangely enough, though, nobody told the chauffeur. He followed the original route and pulled up sharply when Potiorek pointed out the error, exactly opposite the spot where one of the assassins, Princip, was waiting with a loaded revolver. He stepped forward and shot the Archduke, then his wife. She died instantly, the Archduke a few minutes later.’

  ‘What did Brosch do when he found all this out?’

  ‘He went to see Potiorek and asked him to explain his actions. But Potiorek didn’t answer. He merely drew a pair of concentric circles on a piece of paper and pushed it across his desk. He must have thought Brosch was either a member of the Concentric Alliance or well enough aware of its existence to be intimidated by the suggestion that it approved of what had happened. And he was right. Until he left Sarajevo, Brosch pretended he was one of them. He calculated that, if they were prepared to assassinate an archduke, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill a colonel. Potiorek’s use of their symbol had convinced him the Concentric Alliance was real – and powerful.’

  ‘Hold on,’ I protested, dragging at Duggan’s elbow to slow him down. ‘You’re saying
Potiorek was in on it too?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But he was in the same car. The bomb could easily have killed him as well as the Archduke.’

  ‘According to Brosch, Potiorek certainly wasn’t the self-sacrificial type. His theory was that the general thought professional marksmen would be used. Young hot-heads throwing bombs must have come as a nasty shock. But, by the time he realized the dangers—’

  ‘Young hot-heads. Exactly. The assassins – Princip and the rest – were genuine Bosnian nationalists, armed and trained by Serbia. Wasn’t that established beyond doubt years ago?’

  ‘Yes. It was. Under interrogation, they confessed to being agents of the Serbian secret society, the Black Hand. And the leader of the Black Hand, Colonel Dimitrievitch, was also head of the intelligence service of the Serbian General Staff. On his orders, Princip and two of the others were smuggled into Bosnia in late May, equipped with bombs, pistols and prussic acid to take if they were arrested. Four accomplices were waiting for them in Sarajevo, making seven in all. When the day came, they posted themselves along the route of the procession and waited for their chance. Six of them were arrested immediately after the assassination. Those who had prussic acid duly swallowed it. But it had no effect. Probably because they’d been given plain water instead. They were intended to live, to stand trial, to confess their loyalty to Serbia.’

  ‘But … to achieve that … Charnwood would have had to …’

  ‘Have members of the Concentric Alliance working inside the Black Hand. Yes, Mr Horton. You’re beginning to grasp the scale of this conspiracy. That’s what concentricity means. One closed circle, surrounded by another, surrounded by yet another. And one man at their common centre.’

  ‘Planning to provoke a world war?’

  ‘So Brosch believed. So I’ve come to believe.’

  ‘But why? Why would he do it?’

  ‘Neither of us could imagine an adequate motive. And we didn’t have time to debate the matter. You see, Brosch returned to Vienna wondering if he should trust his own suspicions. After all, whatever had happened in Sarajevo, there were no sabres rattling in Vienna. Not enough to be sure of the outcome, anyway. If there was no war, the conspiracy had failed. And he misread the signs like the rest of us. He thought compromise was in the air. Only when he learned the outcome of the Joint Council of Ministers’ secret meeting on the nineteenth did he realize it wasn’t.’

  ‘So he came to you for help?’

  ‘He had nowhere else to turn. An English journalist was about the only form of life he could be sure wasn’t a party to the conspiracy. And he needed information about Charnwood. He’d met him a couple of times at Trade Ministry receptions. Knew of him vaguely as an international business-man. But he had to find out more – and quickly.’

  ‘Through you?’

  ‘Through The Topical. I told him I’d do what I could. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I knew I had to follow it up. The allegations were amazing – and frightening. If it was true, we had about a week to avert a catastrophe. If not, it was still a hell of a good story.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  Duggan stopped in his tracks and stared at me. ‘Not enough, Mr Horton. It happened, didn’t it? The catastrophe wasn’t averted. The roof did fall in. On all of us.’ He shivered. ‘Let’s go back to the car. It’s getting cold out here. Besides, I need a fag. And I’ll never light one in this wind.’ We started back towards the edge of the dunes. ‘I cabled The Topical’s London office, asking them to send me everything they had on Charnwood. While I was waiting for the reply, I tried to track down any connections he might have in Vienna. I drew a blank. The British Embassy didn’t want to know. And when the answer came back from London on Tuesday, it told me precious little. Charnwood was a reputable international financier. His father had run a munitions company which Charnwood had since sold. Well, munitions suggested an interest in warfare, but even that had lapsed. There was nothing to go on.

  ‘I met Brosch that evening. He was disappointed I’d found out so little – and even more anxious than before. The ultimatum was to be delivered to the Serbian Foreign Ministry by the Austro-Hungarian ambassador in Belgrade at 6 p.m. on Thursday. Forty-eight hours later, Austria-Hungary would be at war with Serbia. And pretty soon half of Europe would be at war with the other half. Brosch pleaded with me to do something. Anything. I suggested The Topical might be more helpful if I could tell them the terms of the ultimatum in advance. But Brosch said his informant in the Joint Council would be identified if that happened and so would he. They’d both be as good as dead, with nothing to show for it. Besides, he was no traitor. If war came, he’d fight for his country. But while there was a chance of averting war, we had to try, for humanity’s sake, to—’ Duggan stopped and shook his head, then sent up a shower of sand with a sudden violent kick. ‘For humanity’s sake! I ask you. He said that to me. A bloody journalist. What do I know about humanity?’

  ‘As much as anyone, I suppose.’

  He looked at me sharply, as if uncertain whether I meant it or not. Then he grunted and walked on. ‘He convinced me. Or I convinced myself. It makes no difference now. I decided I had to do my bit for mankind. Charnwood held the key. And he was in England. So, I left Vienna next day and headed for home, hoping I could persuade my editor to back my judgement, hoping I could discover enough in a few short days to expose the conspiracy.

  ‘I reached London on Thursday afternoon, with just a few hours to go before the ultimatum was delivered. I went straight to The Topical headquarters in Shoe Lane and got in to see the editor, Jack Glenister, at about four o’clock. He wanted to know why I’d left Vienna, so I told him. Everything. The whole story. The complete unprovable allegation. With the exception of Brosch’s name. Well, I could see he didn’t believe it. And sitting there, in his comfortable Fleet Street office, I couldn’t blame him. I tried my damnedest to convince him. I pleaded. I cajoled. I crawled. The last seemed to make the biggest impression. He knew I was no bootlicker. So, he made me an offer. If my story about the ultimatum turned out to be true, he’d give me two juniors and a long week-end to run Charnwood to earth. It was as much as I could reasonably expect. I accepted. We agreed to meet again at noon the next day, Friday the twenty-fourth of July.

  ‘By then, news of the ultimatum had broken. It had been delivered at six o’clock. And its terms were so severe that rejection was inevitable. I went back to see Glenister. But there was a surprise waiting for me. The Chief was with him. Northcliffe. And he did all the talking.

  ‘“You’ve been overdoing it, Duggan,” he said. “You’ve been in Vienna too long. Here in London, it doesn’t look the thing to start traducing patriotic Englishmen when we’re on the brink of war. God knows, we’ll have a hard enough job stopping the government ratting on its commitments without chasing after imaginary conspiracies.”

  ‘I told him it wasn’t imaginary. I repeated the whole story. But it did no good. His other papers were bellowing for German blood and he didn’t want The Topical stepping out of line. He grew impatient. Then downright angry.

  ‘“Drop this, Duggan! Drop this now!” he roared. “Or I’ll make sure you never work in Fleet Street again.” I didn’t back down. And I wasn’t prepared to drop it. He left, growling darkly about my future. But everybody’s future was at stake. For once, mine didn’t seem so very important.

  ‘After he’d gone, Glenister tried to placate me. “See reason, George,” he said. “I had to consult the Chief. Just as well I did. For both of us. Now, he thinks – and so do I – that you’re just the man to do a piece on the dispute in the Scottish coalfield. We need somebody to go up there and see whether the miners are likely to put King and country before the minimum wage.”

  ‘I was going to be got out of the way. Packed off to Scotland, about as far from Vienna as possible. The tactics were obvious. And so was the choice. Give up. Or go on. Regardless of the consequences.’

  We reached the car and climbed
in. Duggan stared straight ahead through the wind-screen at the wide expanse of beach and sky, fumbling with a cigarette paper and breathing hard.

  ‘What did you do?’ I prompted gently.

  ‘Mmm?’ He jerked his head round, then grimaced. ‘I went on, of course. Bloody fool that I was. I told Glenister I’d forget the Charnwood story and go up to Scotland after the week-end. He was all smiles when I left. Well pleased with his day’s work.’ Duggan opened his tobacco-tin and transferred some of the contents to the paper. ‘But fooling Glenister was easy. The question was: how to go on? Without the resources of The Topical, I was on my own. I knew next to nothing about the business world. And absolutely nothing about Fabian Charnwood. I spent most of the rest of that day walking round the City, wondering what to do. I went to a pub near St Paul’s where a bloke on the Financial Times I knew slightly used to drink. He was there. And happy to talk. He’d heard of Charnwood Investments and its enigmatic founder. But that was literally all. He couldn’t tell me anything.’ Duggan administered a practised lick to the paper and rolled it round the tobacco, picking off the surplus flakes and letting them fall back into the tin. Then he took out his matches and lit the cigarette. The predictable explosion of coughs followed. But the smoke seemed to relax him. He leant back in the seat. ‘The forty-eight hours were already more than half gone. And what did I have to show for them? Sod all. That’s what.

  ‘Next morning, after tossing and turning most of the night in my hotel room, I took a train down to Dorking, determined to beard Charnwood in his lair. I’d got the address from Who’s Who. I needn’t tell you what Amber Court is like, need I? You know the place better than I do. My luck was in. In one sense, anyway. Charnwood was there. And he agreed to see me. Before I knew what was happening, I was in his study, looking at him across his desk. Such a mild, inoffensive, civilized man. I’d expected some sort of … monster. But he wasn’t that. At least, he didn’t look it.